Phillipov proposes that popular music studies has historically, as a discipline, narrowly defined the genres of music it has examined by having a propensity to stress the political over the pleasurable. This position, she suggests, mirrors the emphasis of interest by its scholars themselves. ‘Fan scholars’, she points out, shape and put a large bordered fence around their terrain of study; this work argues that not only do we need to ‘expand the critical vocabulary’ but also offers a way to do this. Phillipov argues that if we rip apart the structures to which our discipline has become adhesively attached in order to analyse popular music and start with pleasure, we are offered a different set of values and require a different discourse set with which to probe music.
Phillipov suggests that we have become, through our political interest, overly interested in hip-hop and electronic dance music – as we were with their musical antecedent, Punk – which dominate our reading lists and shape what it is acceptable to study both now and (her concern) in the future. We have done Metal an academic disservice by examining it only within the limiting parameters of nihilism.
Typically, lyrical analysis is a focus for deconstructing how music communicates to audiences, but this theoretical framework is rendered almost redundant in her two case studies (Carcass and Cannibal Corpse), which thematically are more akin to the concepts that horror studies can offer in terms of analysis. Understanding the appreciation of technicality in performance and moving away from the bias towards the voice as the key conveyer of meaning while leaning more towards it as an instrument is more helpful. Phillipov draws on Barthes, not surprisingly, to stress that the grain of the voice in death metal requires a different way of appreciating it, rather than blocking it out as mere noise (apologies of course to Mr Attali).
Because this book stems from her doctorate and previously published work (and thank goodness for us all that the blood, sweat and tears involved in toiling over PhD work does get to a wider audience through publication), the content matter is helpful both for students learning how to utilise a literature review, and for those in the field who are less familiar with the strands of research which can helpfully unpack this area. However, it does feel as if it takes a while to get to the heart of the matter in terms of balance. Helpful as it is to contextualise the growth of popular music studies from the Frankfurt School and its academic dance with cultural studies, subcultural and post-subcultural studies, some concepts, such as Bennett's ‘Neo-tribe’, are highlighted early on in the work (in a way which makes you think you need to remember this for later), but then dropped.
However, where this shines is in subtleties, for instance, picking up on the nuance of the genre having ‘singers’ not ‘vocalists’ before demonstrating an application of Gilbert & Pearson's (1997) Derrida-driven examination of dance music to demonstrate our phonologocentricism. Like the genre it is examining, Death Metal and Music Criticism is extremely dense in places but – bar the occasional repetition in argument where it works, such as the use of the organic intellectual thread – it is utterly convincing.
Like the participatory nature of electronic dance music, death metal needs its audience. There are several tantalising references to ethnographic studies of the genre which, while this wasn't the approach adopted here, did make me seek them out to remind myself how pleasure is articulated by its fans. To that extent, it is a clear signpost to other work, but also carves out its own niche in the literature field it works so hard to convey the gaps within.
The thematic extremity of death metal lyrically is undoubtedly controversial, when viewed through the same lens as typical politicised popular music studies. Phillipov suggests that we need another lens to understand the joy the genre's sound can offer, rather than to view it only as a site in which meaning is re-presented. This is imperative, as she suggests, because everything about the form as a sonic text is disrupted. Farewell to clearly articulated lyrics, repetitive chorus and harmonious melodies when the individual riff may be the metatext.
Met(al)iculous desk research makes this a persuasive read. It is a relief that work done elsewhere on the typical approaches to meaning using moral panics is acknowledged but only to an extent that suggests this is not the only way to understand the genre. This allows Phillipov to compellingly concede to the genre's hypermasculinity, while at the same time responding that it doesn't necessarily equate with a phallocentric entirety.
A key driving argument revolves around Kahn-Harris's (2007) reflexive anti-reflexivity, to propose that there is deliberateness to the non-political nature of metal, which was equally compelling in the primary source as well at its utilisation here. Of course the death metal genre is worth studying for pleasure, but to say there are no politics in pleasure leaves the concluding chapter's topic feeling uncomfortable. The author notes her unease at seeing women wearing Cannibal Corpse t-shirts emblazed with ‘Fucked with a Knife’ at one of the band's shows. We may have to agree to disagree that this is the embodiment of reflexive anti-reflexivity without an ethnographic study of the wearers of the t-shirts.
As a book, this is a welcome and refreshing addition to the field, which grew on me, both in terms of the writing style and the argument itself. That it didn't necessarily leave me without questions is a testament to encouraging debate. Long may that continue.
